Twins have the bases loaded, the look on the Twins batter is one of pressure, and they act like they are really on the hotseat.

Twins pitchers load the bases, their look is of being under pressure and they strain to make the perfect pitch.

In other words, Twins look terrible on offense and on the mound, not making plays at the biggest moments of the game.

Imminent collapse.

We can hope that this is just youth. Young players on the big stage in front of tens of thousands will naturally get a little amped up in those situations. For some, that might bring out their best; for others (especially Berrios, I think) it causes them to move away from the things that make them successful.

If this is still happening in a couple of years, we can call them chokers. For now, I'd rather just think of them as young and learning.

It's great to get out of the cellar ... as long as you bring something with you.

No surprise to read Molitor bashers using this as ammunition. I wish the umpire had to talk about what happened. WE got the confused explanation from Roberts, and I thought a pretty clear explanation from Molitor. I thought the umpires handled it horribly.

So, you think Molitor did nothing wrong? That everyone else was wrong?

No surprise to read Molitor bashers using this as ammunition. I wish the umpire had to talk about what happened. WE got the confused explanation from Roberts, and I thought a pretty clear explanation from Molitor. I thought the umpires handled it horribly.

We can hope that this is just youth. Young players on the big stage in front of tens of thousands will naturally get a little amped up in those situations. For some, that might bring out their best; for others (especially Berrios, I think) it causes them to move away from the things that make them successful.

If this is still happening in a couple of years, we can call them chokers. For now, I'd rather just think of them as young and learning.

No surprise to read Molitor bashers using this as ammunition. I wish the umpire had to talk about what happened. WE got the confused explanation from Roberts, and I thought a pretty clear explanation from Molitor. I thought the umpires handled it horribly.

How should they have handled then?

If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.

Let's panic...seems like the right thing to do. This is the toughest part of our schedule which gets much better after this road trip while Cleveland's schedule gets much tougher. The Dodgers are good. They rarely swing at borderline pitches outside of the zone. They are very good at getting into predictable counts and hitting their pitch. We can learn from this and get better.

Concur 100% with implementing pitch clocks. It works out so smoothly in AAA and AA from the games I've attended.

Admittedly I did not watch the game last night as it was past my bedtime, so maybe Maeda was working slower than usual?

Fangraphs has a neat feature called Pace Calculator and I hate to break it to everyone, but Maeda is not close to the worst out there.... In fact, the Twins now have 3 pitchers in the top 25 slowest paced SP! Jaime Garcia #12 at 25.7 seconds between pitches, Kyle Gibson #14 at 25.4 seconds, and Jose Berrios #23 at 24.8 seconds.

When I was watching, Morris was calling out the time between pitches. Mauer's walk took forever. Once, Maeda stepped off the rubber and Morris said it was 48 seconds that he was staring in and then didn't even pitch the ball. All of them seemed to take well over 30 seconds. Problem with taking over 30 seconds is that if a batter doesn't lose patience he will probably call timeout himself so he can go through his routine again and who can blame him? Maybe Maeda was slower than normal. Gibson on the list doesn't shock me but I am a bit surprised that Berrios is on the list.

Vanimal46 likes this

If you build a man a fire, he'll be warm for a day.If you set a man on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

In the standings section, are you trying to show how far the Tigers and White Sox are behind the Twins? Because the Tigers are indeed 4 back of us, 8.5 of the Indians, but the Sox are 9 back of the Twins, 13.5 of the Indians.

So, you think Molitor did nothing wrong? That everyone else was wrong?

All we have to go on is Molitor's word, and I have no reason to believe he's making something up. We haven't heard from the ump or the league. We haven't heard any audio from that conversation. Until we know what was said specifically.

It was just such an obvious double-switch that it's hard to understand how it went so strange.

If Molitor told the ump Belisle for Rosario, and yet the ump doesn't notice that Pressly is coming in that Polanco and not Rosario is coming out... something weird happened. No one appears to be innocent in this. Guilt can go all around.

As for the double switch controversy, let's just add the DH to the NL. Problem solved.

For pace of play, give the pitcher 20 seconds from gloving the ball to throwing the pitch, so long as the batter is also in the box. Allow a batter one timeout per AB, and prohibit him from stepping out of the box in between pitches. Limit catchers to three mound visits per game, with a 30 second limit. Starters are limited to one trip from a pitching coach, relievers as a whole get one visit from the pitching coach. Failure by the batter to observe the rules is a strike, failure by the pitcher to observe the rules is a ball, and an extra visit by a catcher or coach is an automatic walk where every base runner advances a base. If the bases are empty, it's a two-base walk, to ensure visits aren't used as intentional walks.

When I was watching, Morris was calling out the time between pitches. Mauer's walk took forever. Once, Maeda stepped off the rubber and Morris said it was 48 seconds that he was staring in and then didn't even pitch the ball. All of them seemed to take well over 30 seconds. Problem with taking over 30 seconds is that if a batter doesn't lose patience he will probably call timeout himself so he can go through his routine again and who can blame him? Maybe Maeda was slower than normal. Gibson on the list doesn't shock me but I am a bit surprised that Berrios is on the list.

If that's the case, then yeah, that's way too long between pitches. It seems like every year MLB tries to emphasize improving pace of play, but never truly enforce it.

EDIT: Also, at first I didn't see Maeda on the Fangraphs' Pace list, but there he is tucked in at #20 with 25 seconds between pitches. So he also works at a slow pace normally.